Characteristics of patients unaware of their chronic hepatitis virus infection

A number of patients do not benefit from advancements made in the treatment of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) and chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection due to a lack of awareness of their infection. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the reason for this and to identify strategies to resolve this issue. Data were retrospectively collected from medical records for the period between 2009 and 2019. Patients with chronic HBV or HCV infection who had been referred to the hospital and were unaware of their infection prior to their referral were eligible to participate in the present study. Overall, 282 and 259 patients with chronic HBV and HCV infection, respectively, were referred to the hospital. Of these patients, 63 in each group had been unaware of their infection. Moreover, of the 63 patients, seven already had hepatocellular carcinoma at diagnosis. The female patients with HCV were older than the other patients, including the male patients and the female patients with HBV (P=0.02), and the patients in the HBV group were younger than those in the HCV group (P=0.02). The majority of the patients (96/126) had become aware of their infection by chance. In the HBV group, patients whose infection had been detected during a health checkup were significantly younger than those whose infection had been detected by chance (P=0.016), but not in the HCV group. On the whole, these findings suggest that, in order to identify greater numbers of patients with chronic hepatitis infection who are unaware of their infection, the necessity of screening for hepatitis virus in primary care, particularly among women and elderly individuals, should be emphasized and promoted.